The Lamp in the Desert eBook

Again she knew that he spoke the truth. There
had been times of late when she had been made aware
of the fact that her strength was nearing its limit.
She knew it would be sheer madness to neglect the warning
lest, as Peter suggested, her baby’s need of
her outlasted her endurance. She must husband
all the strength she had.

With a sigh she bent and touched the tiny forehead
with her lips. Hanani’s hand, long and
bony, gently stroked her arm as she did so.

“Old Hanani knows, mem-sahib,”
she whispered under her breath.

The tears she had barely checked a moment before sprang
to Stella’s eyes. She held the dark hand
in silence and was subtly comforted thereby.

Passing through the door that Peter held open for
her, she gave him her hand also. He bent very
low over it, just as he had bent on that first wedding-day
of hers so long—­so long—­ago,
and touched it with his forehead. The memory
flashed back upon her oddly. She heard again Ralph
Dacre’s voice speaking in her ear. “You,
Stella,—­you are as ageless as the stars!”
The pride and the passion of his tones stabbed through
her with a curious poignancy. Strange that the
thought of him should come to her with such vividness
to-night! She passed on to her room, as one moving
in a painful trance.

For a space she lingered there, hardly knowing what
she did; then she remembered that she had not bidden
Bernard good-night, and mechanically her steps turned
in his direction.

He was generally smoking and working on the verandah
at that hour. She made her way to the dining-room
as being the nearest approach.

But half-way across the room the sound of Tommy’s
voice, sharp and agitated, came to her: Involuntarily
she paused. He was with Bernard on the verandah.

“The devils shot him in the jungle, but he came
on, got as far as Ralston’s bungalow, and collapsed
there. He was dead in a few minutes—­before
anything could be done.”

The words pierced through her trance, like a naked
sword flashing with incredible swiftness, cutting
asunder every bond, every fibre, that held her soul
confined. She sprang for the open window with
a great and terrible cry.

“Who is dead? Who? Who?”

The red glare of the lamp met her, dazzled her, seemed
to enter her brain and cruelly to burn her; but she
did not heed it. She stood with arms flung wide
in frantic supplication.

“Everard!” she cried. “Oh God!
My God! Not—­Everard!”

Her wild words pierced the night, and all the voices
of India seemed to answer her in a mad discordant
jangle of unintelligible sound. An owl hooted,
a jackal yelped, and a chorus of savage, yelling laughter
broke hideously across the clamour, swallowing it
as a greater wave swallows a lesser, overwhelming
all that has gone before.

The red glare of the lamp vanished from Stella’s
brain, leaving an awful blankness, a sense as of something
burnt out, a taste of ashes in the mouth. But
yet the darkness was full of horrors; unseen monsters
leaped past her as in a surging torrent, devils’
hands clawed at her, devils’ mouths cried unspeakable
things.